


He’s Sinister

by Rohragbritz



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Child! Eren, Childhood, Fluff, Ghost! Levi, Horror, Kissing, M/M, Past Abuse, Supernatural Elements, They’re kids, Underage - Freeform, ghost au, slight PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-28 16:04:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13274997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rohragbritz/pseuds/Rohragbritz
Summary: Eren wants nothing more than for his Father to leave them alone, his Mother to be finally happy, and for his Brother to treat him like he used to. But the church behind his house is holding a secret that lures him in at nught with the promise of seeing a silver eyed, black haired boy that wants him to go down the trap door with him.





	1. New home

**Author's Note:**

> What do you do when you have two fics you’re already late updating? This, probably. 
> 
> This is inspired from Sinister 2 but won’t hold the same plot. Enjoy.
> 
> As usual folks, notify me if there are any glaring spelling/grammar mistakes. I’m blind as shit so I usually miss these things.

Eren didn’t mind the house so much. Their last house had soft, plush carpet, pristine walls and bathrooms and a clean exterior, but he hated that house. He hated walking down the hallways. It wasn’t like they were narrow or dingy, but the narrow space way became intense and suffocating every time....every time he passed his Father. It didn’t matter if it was the man himself. Other times Eren wouldn’t know where his Father was in the house, not heading his bellowed voice downstairs or his heavy footsteps on the wooden floors. Sometimes he couldn’t breath when he didn’t know where his Father was, in that house. Sometimes his office door would be closed, and Eren would hold his breath, clench his fists and stare straight ahead as he silently shifted his weight under the floor. Their floors never really creaked, but on the off chance it did and Grisha heard him? 

Eren stayed in his room a lot. 

But in the new house, it was old and rickety in certain places. The bathroom tiles and wooden floors didn’t shine, they creaked a lot, even at night and for some reason, the noise was comforting to Eren. His mother, brother and himself just settled in. Their mother would usually be in the old church, more beside the house than behind it, and silently, happily restored and painted furniture. Sometimes, when a Eren was out for a walk about the forest behind their property, he would pass the old church and head his mother singing. The first time he heard it he thought it was someone else. He hadn’t heard his mother’s voice like that in a long time. 

His room was much the same like the rest of the house, old. He didn’t mind, there was a window seat to the left of his bed, where the windows made up the corner of the house. He could see the road and driveway easily to. He liked that. 

Jean was much the same. Actually, ever since they moved from home, Kean would argue with his mother because of how old the house was or why he would push Eren around. He never did it hard enough for him to fall, but the lingering of his hands in his shoulders made it perfectly clear in Erens mind that he could easily overpower him if he wanted to. 

He still played with his brother though. It wasn’t like they had much choice, not another house for half a mile. Jean wasn’t so bad most of the time though. As long as Eren stayed in his good side, not challenging him in any way like telling Jean he didn’t like the game they were playing or that he was doing something the wrong way. He would keep his mouth shut and the bruises on his skin off. Much like when they were back with Dad.

Eren had set up his toom perfectly. He was a bit paticulst about how everything in his toom sat and after much contemplation on his behalf, a several setting changes, he had gotten it perfectly right. 

His room was small. As soon as you walked it would only be another seven steps before you hit the back wall. His bed sat in the middle of the room, the head where the left wall lay. At the foot of his bed to the right, was a small closet, and beside it lay his book case. Other than a small beside table and dresser pressed in the back wall, where the windows lay, there wasn’t much else. And it was perfect. Eren grinned, standing in the doorway of his room. He had just finished the last shift and he rocked from his toes to the flat underside of his heels in content. Now he had nothing to do. 

He didn’t know where Jean was, probably outside, pretending to be Rambo and poking at stuff with a large stick. He used to play beside Jean all the time. They would run around the neighbourhood with the other kids and play war or black ops with sticks for guns and handfuls of dirt for grenades. He found himself staying in the house more though. He didn’t want to play with Kean or throw fists of mud, he found himself in the church most days. He found the place creepy. The church was older than the house and there was something so unnerving about the abandoned building. Bits and pieces lay around the main halls edge from its glory days, the back halls were filthy, more like a sanctuary for dirt and weeds and various tags that a piece of the church itself. And Eren always felt... like something was there. Not like someone was staring at him or watching his movements, but, something. Maybe it was how the room was always darker than outside since there weren’t too many windows, maybe it was the small, skirting noises that he couldn’t completely say were from rats. It made him shiver. But he still found himself hanging out there in the main hall. That’s where his mother worked after all, silently painting the piece of furniture she was working in, smiling at him every now and again like she forgot he was even sitting there. He didn’t speak much during that time, knowing his mother was concentrating. 

So that’s where he went. He heard the traces of sound of his brother yelling, trying to sound manly and decided to ignore him completely. The church doors were open and he clasped his hands tightly against his sides as he walked in.

“Hey, baby boy! I was about to finish and make up some lunch. Just twenty more minutes, okay?” The soft times of his mother’s voice echoed slightly in the room. 

Eren nodded. Carla was wearing her usual flower print apron, long hair in a mess of tangled in the form of a messy bun at her male, the wrinkles he remembered seeing on her face a few months ago all but disappeared. He smiled at her.

“Okay, mum.” He said, plopping himself on a small stack of chairs. After a few minutes of looking around and swinging his legs, he wouldn’t admit it if you told anybody, he decided the boredom was worse than inside the house and wanted to explode more. Staying far away from the back hallways that gave him the creeps, he instead inspected the stuff fringing the edges of the room. There was loads of stuff, a lot he couldn’t put a name to. Near the back of the room he spotted a cabinet, sheeted in white, that he had always found himself curious about. It was located next to a maze of more stacked chairs that he found particularly challenging to navigate. When he squeezed through, making sure his mother was hard at work and not paying attention to his troublesome nature, he faced the cabinet. Then he looked down, to where an old piano was located behind it. With new found excitement, not that he played, he opened up the light brown pianos lidr. It was old and fairly tender with age, creaking slightly as he moved the lid. He spied a smal engraving on the ledge. “ACKERMAN” etched into the wood. ‘Huh’ he thought, ‘that’s an odd name’ assuming it was the title of the pianos manufacturer. The keys were slightly yellow with age but he still marveled st the piece. He always fantasised about being a fancy musician but he could never sit down long enough and concentrate to learn how to read music. Eren just assumed he was too stupid and put the dream at the back of his head, something he would fantasise about on long car rides or when he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t dare play the keys, not wanting anyone else to know his discovery and slowly closed the pianos lid til it made a soft “thud”. He traced the engraved name with a pointed finger. 

He was about to move away from the object when he noticed a trap door underneath one of the pianos legs. 

He stare at it. When he was younger he found a weirdly small door in his old grandmothers house. It was on the last floor and sort of, quirky in its small size. Eren didn’t lay too much attention to it til one day when he found himself bored in the house. He had opened the door, not wanting anyone to see him sneak in, and closed it behind him. He had a small torch with him. It had multiple settings when you turned it on, making shadows of Disney characters dance on the walls. The room was surrounded with walls of boxes and junk, a dim, ambient light coming from a curtained window. It was a little piece of wonderland, Eren thought. He never found anything special in there, but growing up with Narnia and the secret garden made him hopeful that a doorway would open up and take him to some fantasy land. Not that he told anybody this and would deny it if someone accused him of it. But, he had also watched a movie at his ild friends olace, a horror movie that showed a trap door under a mat that obscured the smearing of blood. He didn’t watch much after that, only bits and pieces from behind his drawn up knees. The room below it had low hanging meat hooks, blood everywhere, and a book that brought a demon from hell. Before he could ponder any further, his mother called out. 

“Eren! I’m going inside so get your butt moving soon.”

He blinked in shock and looked around, as if he had been caught with his hand stuffed inside a Nutella jar. 

“Yeah, okay! I’m just looking at stuff.” He said, not without a defensive tone.”

“...uh-huh, don’t you dare break anything!” She yelled back while Eren was struggling to squeeze his way passed the stacked chairs. 

“I’m not!” He yelled back, a bloom of shame on his cheeks at his mother’s barraging. 

He ran into the house after her, not looking back at the church. 

-

He started to feel shivers every time he looked at the old building. He didn’t know why, but it was like something shifted in the air surrounding the bricked walls. It was the height of summer, so he quickly decided that the cold sensation aling his back wasn’t from the weather. He didn’t know what to do about it. It was just an increasingly creepy feeling, warding Eren to stay away with its lure for him to get closer. A few days later his mother noticed. She looked at him concerningly. Recently, Eren had been acting stranger than his usual self. He didn’t play with his brother like he used to and stayed mainly quiet through the summer. Ever since Grisha. Carla only shook her head with purses lips. They’ll be okay. Eren followed her around most days, keeping to himself, usually ignoring Jean when he could. She sighed and left Eren to his own devices. Sounds like these taok time. At least, that’s what the grief councelor told her. 

His mother noticed that he didn’t go in to the church with her like usual. She didn’t ask him about it, only looked at him with a pained expression from the church doorway before heading inside. Two days after that when Eren found himself sitting on the porch, drawing in a notebook he had gotten the year before. He was in the middle of sketching his second drawing before he heard thundering footsteps on the porch steps. He barely had enough time to look up before he was pushed onto his back. 

“Yo, what up pussy?” His brother stood in front of him, mud caked boots standing in his notebook.

“What’s are you doing?” He yelled, trying to push his brothers legs off.

There was only a huff above him before he was lightly kicked to the side. It didn’t hurt but Eres shoulder pressed on the edge of a floorboard, scraping his skin.

He gave a short yell, clutching his arm in pain as he layer on his side, bringing his legs to his chest instinctively. Jean just grimaced and kicked his notebook off the porch. A moment later Jean followed. He was making his way to the front door when there was a strong shift in the air and Jeans body flew backyards, off the porch and landing a foot away from the steps. 

The boy choked on the air that wouldn’t enter his lungs, flailing as his body refused to get up. Carla watched misstep from the church doors. A moment later she was by the boys side, lifting his upper half up off the ground and cradling the gasping boy. Eren watched with wife eyes, knowing he saw exactly what just happened but not registering it. 

Carla only made sure Eren was okay, looking at the blood scraped arm before she hauled Jean up and into the house. Eren remained there, breathing heavily as his body went into some sort of minor shock. He slowly sat up, feeling a small trickle of blood run down his arm. He looked down at his bloodied hand.

He was halfway to the church, not even thinking about it, when he stopped in his tracks completely. Right there, a figure, standing at the entrance window, was staring at him. He couldn’t move, staring wide eyed at the unmoving shadow. He could see a face or any sign of detail to tell him who it was, just a humanoid shape that stood there, unmoving. Eren started to panic. It was a mans figure clearly. 

“No....” he whispered, shaking his head violently. 

His body started to shake, tears welling in his eyes. He had found them. Mom was always looking over her shoulder, taking them from town to town when she thought he had followed their trail. He could still feel the hits on his ribs and stomach. His hyperventilating increased, heightening till he-

“Eren?” He turned, seeing his Mom.

“M-Mom....he’s-“ she ran over to him, catching the boy in her arms.

“Hey now, baby, Jeans alright. I didn’t see what happened but I-“

“M-Mom!” He sobbed, “he’s here. I saw him. There was someone in the church!” He turned to point behind them. There was no one there.

Eren cried himself to sleep that night. 

He tried to cry quietly, knowing Jean was in the room opposite him and his mother was down the hall. He couldn’t seem to stop. The shock from Jeans...fall and seeing that figure made everything Eren was holding in come out. 

Just before his cries settled and he left consciousness, he felt someone sit at the foot of his bed.


	2. A waiting room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi’s official introduction.

Jean was acting weird. He didn’t half-heartedly push Eren around as much. Actually, he hadn’t done it at all. When they were having family dinner, Jean would only talk to their Mother and even then, it was with a smaller voice then his usual energetic self. During the day Eren would either be inside or wandering the stream a mile behind the house and when Jean found him by accident, playing his war game, he would stop right in his tracks, stare, then run off into another direction without a single word. Eren was slightly irritated at his brother ignoring his existence, but at a point, relieved that he wasn’t paying the boy any attention. He could understand though. Jean had flew back over ten feet and all of them didn’t talk about it. Eren had yet to find out if His mother had seen all of it, Jean pushing him down, kicking his books, then flying back like he was shoved without any source. It reminded him of their old house. His mother would stare at him, unmoving on the ground, and frequently did nothing. She had snapped at one point. Eren had to be take.n to hospital, barely breathing and Carla had left his brother there with him before deiving off and only returning with all their things packed and ready to leave that town behind them. But when Jean was pushed back, his mother had that same stare. Like she couldn’t exactly register what was happening in front of her. He couldn’t blame her though because Eren had no answers either. 

He let it go. Letting his brother act weird around him meant that he wasn’t pushing Eren like he usually did and that made Eren give a little smile. Sitting on his bed, pen in hand and notebook layed out in front of him. It was early afternoon and the house was blissfully empty when Eren realised this. That it was the first smile that breached his youthful face in months. He continued to draw in his book. He was surprisingly good at drawing from memory and found himself starting to sketch the old piano in the church. It was when he was finishing up on the engraving of “ACKERMAN” that he noticed someone calling his name. 

“Mom?” He called back, now bounding down the stairs two at a time. 

They called again, this time he couldn’t tell where the voice was coming rom other than it wasn’t in the house. Outside, he made his way to the church, finding it unhelpfully empty but stopped in the doorway when he heard the voice again. 

“Jean?” 

It didn’t sound like Jeans voice at all but the tone sounded young and male. He listened further but there was no reply. 

Curiously he slowly walked into the main hall, trying to spy over boxes and heaps of stuff to see if anyone was there. Stopping in the middle of the room he furrowed his brow.

“Hello? You’re not suppose to be in here, this is private property.” He said, not unauthoritivey, placing his hands on his hips. He may be the youngest in the house but he was still a man of the household. 

When it remained silent, the only movement in the room being the dust speaks catching in the sunlight, he huffed. Clacking his shoe on the wood nervously, he had the sudden thought that someone might be in the back halls. Puffing his cheeks out and standing straighter, he mimicked a march towards the closed door before wrenching it open. He wasn’t scared of some kid hiding in this crumbling building, he thought, staring straight ahead of him. The hallway was dark, it was always like that. The windows that once would’ve given the space a nice natural light, were now boarded up with old wood and rusty nails. The floor below him was ruined with past flooding and old debris. He hated this part of the church. He hated how he couldn’t see a foot in front of him. The whole place was shrouded in a heavy blackness that made Eren want to throw up and run away at the same time. It wasn’t like he was afraid of the dark, actually, he was braver than most kids with that sort of stuff. He never ran for cover in his room after flushing the toilet at night or was scared of his slightly ajar closet in the dark. He was a tough kid. But that hallway was something Eren didn’t want to be in at all. He was only a few steps into the hallway when there was a sudden sound behind him. He turned his body from the shock of the sound before feeling a shiver run up his spine and frantically fled the hallway, closing the door behind him and placing his back against it. If there was anything more terrifying than being in that narrow space, it was having his back to it. He felt a comfortable relief being in the main hall wheee the sun flirted through the high windows, bathing the old space with a gentle glow. He stood there for a minute, feeling his heart eagerly jump out his chest and his breathing laboured. Just before his breathing went back to normal, he heard the sound again. 

It was the piano! 

Someone was playing a key. 

He gingerly shifted from the door, putting one foot in front of the other hesitantly as if not wanting anyone to know he was there. He slowly made his way to the corner of the room, dodging dangerously high piles of boxes and covered objects before he found himself at the start of the small maze of chairs. Peeking through the narrow pathway gap, he gasped, successfully knocking the stack behind him. He whipped around, steadying the swaying ladder of chairs with both hands before it knocked any others. He breathed a sigh of relief before he looked over his shoulder curiously. There, standing before the piano, hand poised to play, was a small boy. 

“Ah!-uh, umm, who are you!” Eren sled, sounding like more of a statement than a question with the volume of his shocked voice. 

The boy was dressed really weirdly. He had fancy black leather shoes, white knee high socks that reached black shorts just above the knee, a black jacket to match with a blue sweater and a weird cloth hanging from his neck. His skin was oddly pale and unnervingly translucent in the shaded corner of the otherwise well lit room. He looked at Eren with annoyance, his thin eyebrows arching over his sharp grey eyes.

“Stop you’re babbling, kid. There’s no need to shout.”

Eren opened his mouth only to close it again, staring at the smaller figure in front of him. He tilted his head.

“Kid? Hey, you’re a kid too, a-and you can’t come onto this property! It’s private.” He said the last part with a degree of surety, proud that he knew about this fact. 

The black haired boy only turned back to the faded instrument, placing his hand back to its side. 

“I use to live here,” he rubbed the back of his head, “I...was beginning to think you couldn’t hear me.”

Eren didn’t know what to say to that, still staring at the dressed up figure in front of him. He moved out from being sandwiched by the wooden maze and into the small space, only being able to stand beside the boy or behind him. He moved to his side. 

“Wait, were you the one calling me? That’s weird, how did you hear my name?”

The boy looked at Eren, a strange look in his eyes, “you’re mother.”

“Oh, okay.”

There was silence between them, a frown gracing the boys face.

“What’s your name then?”

“Levi.”

It was only then that Eren noticed how soft spoken the raven was. 

“That’s a cool name.”

The boy nodded but said nothing further.

Eren puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. He wanted to ask a million questions but felt he shouldn’t. Looking at Levi again, he looked like he wanted to run away and punch Eren at the same time. He had a displeased look on his face and kept his head mostly down. Eren couldn’t tell if he was angry or scared. 

“You’re dressed really funny.”

Levi shook his head, “Well you’re the one dressed so improper, you don’t have any shoes on.”

It was true, Eren seldom wore shoes around the house and property in general. He also only had an old pair of board shorts and a tank top. He grinned. 

“This is normal, it’s summer after all. Oh, what’s that?” He pointed a finger to the boys neck cloth. It circled around his white collared shirt and was encrusted with a medium sized red rock in the middle.

“Is that a real diamond?!” The big swatted his hand away, “of course not, it’s a ruby, and this is a cravat you ignorant imp.” 

“Hey!” Eren shook his hand in pain, “no need to be a sourpuss.”

The boy just stared at him, “a what.”

“A-uh, nevermind.” He grumbled back.

The silence continued.

“Do you...want to see something?” Levi asked heavily, as if he was asking Eren to do something he shouldn’t.

“Like what?”

Levi gave him a small, reassuring smile, his eyes dancing lightly, “you’ll see. but,” he pointed down at the trap door half stuck with the piano legs weight, “you’ll have to help me move this over to get inside.”

Eren only hesitated a moment before profusely nodding. Over the last few days his mind would casually wander to the trap door and what it had inside. Debating if it was like the hallway and horror movie he had seen last summer, or it it was like his grandmothers attic. Batting the thoughts away, all that mattered was that the two boys were going to explore something. Something his mother or Jean wouldn’t know about. The narrow space only permitted the piano to be moved an inch of the trap doors reach. When they were shifting its weight, Eren could swore that Levi wasn’t putting any real work behind his pushes but he didmissed it, gritting his teeth and stomping his heels onto the wooden floor to get better leverage. Both boys stared down at the trap door when the piano was successfully moved and out of their way. 

“So?” Levi asked impatiently. 

Eren looked to him nervously for a second before reaching down and grabbing the thick iron latch. He tried to pull it and was unsuccessful, the door giving a small jump before clanging back to its place.

He winced at the echo. Trying again, more tenderly, Eren grabbed the latch, both hands this time, and tensed his back. He started to pull with his shoulders before shifting to pull with his legs, lifting the trap door. He hurried to put a shoulder under the weight and manuver it to sit against the wall before gravity caught it again. 

They were welcomed with a thick blackness.

Eren started to rethink this idea. 

Unforntunately before he could turn to the properly dressed raven, Eren felt a hand on his back before he yelped and was pushed into the waiting darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was quickly written up the last two days so I can get the plot rolling faster for the horror theme to really come into play. I hope y’all aren’t squeamish.


End file.
